


Fetch

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Bat Family - Fandom, Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17200169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: So there's this dog





	Fetch

The first time, Jason came very close to stabbing her. He and Damian were waiting in a warehouse in pitch darkness, trying to catch an arms ring in the act, when something warm brushed against his ankles. He lunged backwards, yelping in surprise, and nearly fell over in an attempt to pull a knife from his belt.

Damian swung down from the rafters to check on him, not that Damian would admit that was what he was doing. “Trip over your own incompetence?”

“No, your ego. Easy mistake.”

“Hilarious. What happened?”

“I don’t know. There was something here. I thought it was you,” Jason told him. “You’re usually the only thing at that height.” He grinned as Damian backhanded him lightly in the shoulder in retaliation.

“Ow, my knee.”

“Hilarious.” Damian repeated, pulling a pen light from his glove. He flicked the dim beam around the room for a few moments, until it landed on a small shape in the corner— a dog with it’s tail tucked underneath it. She stared back at them with reflective eyes.

“Oh,” said Jason, putting away his knife.

“ _Oh_ ,” said Damian, hurrying over to the corner. The dog didn’t run away, but she did huddle in tighter. She got over that pretty quickly. As soon as Damian started petting her, she rolled over to solicit a belly rub, happily wagging her tail as Damian complied.

She was a small dog— a puppy really. A tiny golden retriever without a collar. Jason bent down to pet her himself, then retreated back to his hiding place. Somebody had to keep watch while Damian was distracted.

It was a good thing he did, because moments later, the warehouse lights flipped on and gunshots started firing. Jason dove behind the crate of weapons he and Damian had opened earlier. On his way down, he saw Damian grapple into the rafters while the puppy bolted out the door.

So much for that.

 

The second time, Jason found her at the mouth of an alley, barking up a storm. Behind her lay a still body, not moving. Dead? Jason wasn’t sure. The dog growled when he tried to get closer.

“Hey,” he told her. “I’m trying to help.”

The dog, rather predictably, did not understand him.

“Okay,” he muttered, pushing past her into the darkness. The figure on the ground turned into the still form of an adolescent boy. Jason could see him breathing, but he was in bad shape.

There was blood dripping from his head.

“Shit,” said Jason, dialing 911. He ran to his motorcycle and pulled his first aid kit. The kid would need it. One brief conversation with the emergency center later, Jason knelt by the boy with a roll of bandages.

Something warm rammed into his side. _BARK_! Jason almost fell over from the impact.

“I’m trying to help!” Jason repeated. He shoved the dog away from him as she ran in for a second pass. “Jesus! Is this your owner?”

Emergency sirens started up in the distance.

“He’ll be fine, okay? Good girl. Good dog. Trying to help.”

The dog did not calm down until the ambulance arrived to take the kid away. Jason scooped her up as the EMTs loaded up the stretcher. He would bring her to the hospital, he figured. The boy

would want his dog back.

Jason encountered a small hiccup in that plan when he arrived and spoke to the family: she wasn’t their dog.

He couldn’t exactly stick her back on the street. They were miles from the alleyway or the warehouse from before. He had been carrying her for hours, first in his arms and then on a makeshift leash made from grappling wire.

One night with a dog wouldn’t kill him.

 

Before they entered the safehouse, Jason stopped to give the dog a stern talking-to.

“Do not,” he began, “destroy my things. There will be no barking or licking while I am asleep. We will find your owner tomorrow.”

The dog stared at him.

“ _Somebody_ out there is really upset that you’re MIA.”

More staring.

“Missing in action,” Jason explained. “M-I-A.”

Soft bark.

“Mia.” Jason tried.

The dog looked back at him with wide, brown eyes.

“Mia, then. That’s what we’re calling you.” Jason grinned. “Full name ‘Damian’ because you’re small and a pain in my ass. Plus that’s where you’re going if we can’t find your owner. He’ll take you in.”

More staring.

“God, I hope you’re house trained,” sighed Jason, opening the door.

He pulled off her leash as they stepped inside. She bounded off happily; Jason went to find some spare bedding. He tossed his phone on the couch on his way to the linen closet, then pulled out the rattiest blanket he possessed. He turned around.

Mia bounced in front of him, his phone in her mouth.

“No!” he told her. “Bad dog!”

He threw his phone back on the couch. She sprang across the room and returned it in a pile of slobber.

“Don’t… okay. Phones are not for fetch. Here.”

He found a baseball— a trophy from a Riddler incident, if he wasn’t mistaken— on his display shelf and tossed it across the room. “Fetch!” he told her.

Mia ran back to the linen closet, grabbed Jason’s phone in her mouth, and brought it to him.

“I said _fetch_ , not phone. Fetch!”

He gestured after the ball.

She dropped his phone on the ground and pointed at it with her nose.

“You’re an idiot,” Jason told her. He laid out a couch pillow and the blanket on the floor, then flipped off the lights. “Go to sleep, idiot.”

He dropped her on the pillow and went to his room to get ready for bed, singing under his breath as he went. As he pulled on his pajamas, he broke into full song

Howling from the other room.

Jason stuck his head around the doorway and stared into the darkness. Luminescent eyes stared back at him.

“Shhh,” he told her, then ducked back into his room. He began to sing again, softer this time.

More howling.

“Hey! It’s a safehouse. People aren’t supposed to know we’re here.” Jason flipped on the lights in the main room and glared at the dog. “Quiet.”

She huffed excitedly, ran across the room, and bounced off Jason’s legs.

“Idiot,” he repeated. “Do you like to sing too?” He started up again, watching Mia intently.

Instant howling. For a few seconds, he let her duet— him singing, her howling— then cut off quickly. It was cute, really, but he had a low profile to maintain.

“Go to sleep,” he told her again. “That’s what I’m doing.” He flipped off the lights and went to lie down.

There was thumping at the foot of his bed, then a small, furry figure flopped on top of his feet.

“Whatever,” Jason decided, and fell asleep.

 

Regrettably, he didn’t stay asleep for long. Right before sunrise, Jason woke up to loud, repeated barking.

“Mia,” he groaned. “Bad dog! Quiet!”

Mia didn’t stop barking. Jason sat up and found her pressed against the window to the fire escape, yelling angrily at whatever was happening outside.

Jason went to the window, expecting to find another dog passing beneath them. Instead, he saw a half dozen figures walk out of the darkness.

All of them carried guns— big guns, the kind he and Damian had found in the warehouse where Mia first appeared.

Well shit. Jason didn’t have enough time to change into his work clothes, so he grabbed the helmet from his nightstand and kept moving. It would have to do. He ducked beneath his window and cautiously rose enough to see outside.

The figures gathered silently beneath him. One lifted his hand and motioned towards Jason’s building.

He dove away from the window as the bullets started flying. Mia bolted from the bedroom into the blanket on the living room floor, away from the sound of gunfire. Jason was glad she did. He didn’t want her to get shot.

As it turned out, she wasn’t the one to worry about. Jason looked down and found two holes in his leg that definitely should not have been there.

“Fuck!” he hissed. The pain hit him in a wave after that. Beneath him, the gunfire went silent as the gunmen began to reload.

Jason decided that he maybe, possibly, he might need some help. He reached up and fumbled on his nightstand for his phone, then remembered he had left it in the other room. Fuck! He didn’t think he could make it that far. He was bleeding badly.

“Mia!” he yelled. “Fetch!”

She brought him his phone.

Jason barely had enough time to send out a distress signal before the gunfire started up again. He pulled Mia behind the bed for cover. His own gun was hidden beneath the mattress. He retrieved it to return fire.

Jason didn’t remember much after that: just gunfire and Bruce on his windowsill.

 

He woke up in the Cave with something furry in his lap and Damian hovering next to him.

“You didn’t _tell_ me you kept the dog!” Damian burst out, as soon as Jason opened his eyes.

“I’m not keeping the— ack!” Jason cut off as Mia bounded up his chest and licked his face.

“Good girl,” Damian told her, thrilled.

“Yeah okay,” Jason muttered, pulling Mia back into his lap. “I’m keeping the dog.”


End file.
